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      Who Are the 4 Key Officials Leaving City Hall?

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      Four deputy mayors in the Eric Adams administration — all respected veteran public servants — are resigning.On Monday, four of Mayor Eric Adams’s eight deputy mayors announced they would resign.In a City Hall tarnished by accusations of cronyism and corruption, the four departing deputy mayors stood out as well-regarded technocrats with decades of public service experience.It is unclear if their departures will lead to an exodus of the commissioners serving under them. Nor is it clear how Mr. Adams will replace them, or govern, moving forward.Here is a look at the four officials who resigned.Maria Torres-Springer, First Deputy MayorMaria Torres-Springer was named first deputy mayor last fall.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesWhen Mr. Adams named Maria Torres-Springer, 48, as first deputy mayor in October, longtime city government hands breathed a sigh of relief.In a City Hall racked by upheaval, Ms. Torres-Springer’s long, distinguished résumé promised managerial competence. Her prior positions included deputy mayor for housing, economic development and work force; commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development; and president and chief executive of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.She played a pivotal role in developing the City of Yes zoning proposal, which the City Council passed in December, and which is designed to create up to 80,000 units of new housing in a city desperately short of it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Adams to Sue Trump Administration Over Clawback of Migrant Shelter Funds

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      The decision to sue over the $80 million in seized funds comes as the New York City mayor has been accused of supporting the White House’s immigration agenda in exchange for legal leniency.Mayor Eric Adams intends to sue the Trump administration by the end of next week over its clawback of $80 million in federal funding meant to cover the cost of housing migrants in New York City, according to a letter from City Hall.The letter, which was sent to the city comptroller on Friday, said the Law Department was in the process of “drafting litigation papers” in an effort to reverse the administration’s clawback of the funds, which were transferred to New York by the Federal Emergency Management Agency this month.Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, said the suit was expected to be filed by Friday. The mayor’s intention to sue was first reported by Politico on Friday.The decision by Mr. Adams to take a legal stand against the Trump administration on an immigration-related issue comes at a critical moment for the mayor, who this week faced mounting calls to resign after Manhattan’s acting U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, accused him of trading concessions on immigration policy for the dismissal of the corruption charges against him.On Monday, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, ordered Manhattan prosecutors to drop the case against Mr. Adams.Mr. Bove said the move had nothing to do with the case’s legal strengths, but rather that its prosecution would impede Mr. Adams’s ability to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration policies, a highly unusual justification for dropping criminal charges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Will Stand Up to Trump at High Noon?

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      When I was a teenager, my older brother took me to see “Shane.”I wasn’t that into westerns, and the movie just seemed to be about a little boy running after Alan Ladd in the wilderness of the Tetons, screaming “Sha-a-a-a-ne, come back!”I came across the movie on Turner Classic Movies the other night, and this time I understood why the George Stevens film is considered one of best of all time. (The A.F.I. ranks “Shane, come back!” as one of the 50 top movie lines of all time.)The parable on good and bad involves a fight between cattle ranchers and homesteaders. Ladd’s Shane is on the side of the honest homesteaders — including an alluring married woman, played by Jean Arthur. Arriving in creamy fringed buckskin, he is an enigmatic golden gunslinger who goes to work as a farmhand. Jack Palance plays the malevolent hired gun imported by the brutal cattle ranchers to drive out the homesteaders. Palance is dressed in a black hat and black vest. In case you don’t get the idea, a dog skulks away as Palance enters a saloon.It’s so easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, the right thing to do versus the wrong. Law and order wasn’t a cliché or a passé principle that could be kicked aside if it interfered with baser ambitions.The 1953 film is also a meditation on American masculinity in the wake of World War II. A real man doesn’t babble or whine or brag or take advantage. He stands up for the right thing and protects those who can’t protect themselves from bullies.I loved seeing all those sentimental, corny ideals that America was built on, even if those ideals have often been betrayed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Career Prosecutors Signed a Dismissal Request in Eric Adams Case

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      About two dozen lawyers in the Justice Department’s public integrity section conferred on Friday morning to wrestle with a demand from a Trump political appointee that many of them viewed as improper: One of them needed to sign the official request to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.The acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove III, told the shellshocked staff of the section responsible for prosecuting public corruption cases that he needed a signature on court motions. The lawyers knew that those who had already refused had resigned, and they could also be forced out.By Friday afternoon, a veteran prosecutor in the section, Ed Sullivan, agreed to submit the request in Manhattan federal court to shield his colleagues from being fired, or resigning en masse, according to three people briefed on the interaction, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.The filing landed in the court docket Friday evening, bearing the name of Mr. Sullivan and that of a criminal division supervisor as well as the signature of Mr. Bove.Mr. Bove, the filing said, “concluded that dismissal is necessary because of appearances of impropriety and risks of interference with the 2025 elections in New York City.” The stated justification was remarkable because of its acknowledgment that politics, not the evidence in the case, had played a guiding role.On Thursday, six lawyers — the Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and five prosecutors in Washington — resigned rather than accede to Mr. Bove’s demands. On Friday, a seventh stepped down, writing in his resignation letter that only a “fool” or a “coward” would sign off on the dismissal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Eric Adams Highlights Coordination With Trump’s Border Czar on Fox News

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      If Mayor Eric Adams of New York City wanted to dispel fears that he was beholden to the Trump administration in exchange for its maneuvering to have his criminal case dropped, his appearance on “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning seemed to have the opposite effect.In the joint appearance with President Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, the two described their newfound collaboration on Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. It led to some uncomfortable moments for Mr. Adams, a Democrat.The mayor, who is facing vigorous calls to resign, reiterated his support for working with Mr. Trump to detain and deport immigrants who are accused of crimes. Then Mr. Homan warned that he would make sure Mr. Adams complied.“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch — I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Mr. Homan said.Mr. Homan pressed for further cooperation from Mr. Adams and attacked Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is facing growing pressure to use her power to remove Mr. Adams from office.“Governor Hochul, she needs to be removed,” Mr. Homan said. “The one who needs to be removed is her. She supports sanctuary policies.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How the Justice Dept. Helped Sink Its Own Case Against Eric Adams

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      President Trump had just taken office when lawyers for Mayor Eric Adams of New York went to the White House with an extraordinary request: They formally asked in a letter that the new president pardon the mayor in a federal corruption case that had yet to go to trial.Just a week later, one of Mr. Trump’s top political appointees at the Justice Department called Mr. Adams’s lawyer, saying he wanted to talk about potentially dismissing the case.What followed was a rapid series of exchanges between the lawyers and Mr. Trump’s administration that exploded this week into a confrontation between top Justice Department officials in Washington and New York prosecutors.On Monday, the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department sent a memo ordering prosecutors to dismiss the charges against the mayor. By Thursday, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, had resigned in protest over what she described as a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and the mayor of New York City. Five officials overseeing the Justice Department’s public integrity unit in Washington stepped down soon after.The conflagration originated in the back-and-forth between Mr. Adams’s lawyers, Alex Spiro and William A. Burck, and the Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, exchanges which have not been previously reported.The series of events — in which the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department seemed to guide criminal defense lawyers toward a rationale for dropping charges against a high-profile client — represents an extraordinary shattering of norms for an agency charged with enforcing the laws of the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Curtails Anti-Corruption Efforts, as Aides Seek End to Eric Adams Case

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      Two nearly simultaneous moves by the Trump administration on Monday signaled a new and far more transactional approach to the Justice Department’s handling of corruption cases.In the evening, President Trump signed an executive order halting investigations and prosecutions of corporate corruption in foreign countries, arguing such cases hurt the United States’ competitive edge. “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America,” he said of his decision to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.Around the same time, a top Justice Department official directed federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop bribery charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. The stated justification for the demand had nothing to do with the evidence in the case and focused instead on politics.The actions on Monday stunned current and former prosecutors and investigators who said the department was abandoning a tradition of holding public officials, corporate executives and others accountable for corruption in favor of an approach built on political or economic expedience.That same day, Mr. Trump pardoned Rod R. Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who was convicted in 2011 of essentially trying to sell a Senate seat that was vacated by President Barack Obama. Mr. Trump had previously commuted Mr. Blagojevich’s sentence.Trump administration officials have also ordered the shutdown of an initiative to seize assets owned by foreign kleptocrats, dialed back scrutiny of foreign influence efforts aimed at the United States and replaced the top career Justice Department official handling corruption cases.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More